Survey Stashing: OnePoll hints & tips

System

I joined on 18 March and have racked up £39.10 so far after spending what is probably a very unhealthy amount of time on it. The £2.50 "head start" they give you is quite a clever way of hooking you in - once I'd done a couple of surveys on top of that, it seemed wasteful to stop so I just carried on, despite knowing full well that what they pay is probably way below the minimum wage when you work it out! The number of surveys varies from week to week. A couple of weeks ago the pattern changed abruptly - now it's "answer this survey for a chance to win £100!" most of the time. No thanks, I'd rather go for a guaranteed 10p. Some of the surveys *really* make you work for your 15p or whatever it is, especially the ones where you have to spend ages watching adverts and telling whoever it is whether you reckon they're wasting their money on the agency that made them.

Some of the surveys are a bit patronising, especially the ones that seem to assume you're on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of the downturn. No, I have not had to flog all my worldly goods and sell my grandmother to afford days out for the kids... yet.

Will update this if and when I hit £40 and get it. Fingers crossed...

Update (1 Aug): yay! I requested my £40 payment on 20 July and it arrived on 27 July. That's the end of my polling, it's just not worth the time any more.

As far as hints and tips go: every time you start a survey, take a look at the survey code, as it can give you a useful clue as to what the survey is about. A recent example was a code ending in BIC; the first screening question was "what method of transport do you use to get to work?", so you could kind of guess what they were looking for (but far be it from me to suggest "tailoring" your answers, dear me no...)

kwakwaversal

The following has just been posted on Onepoll's facebook page:

Hi all - in terms of avoiding prize surveys that we make available to you.

Our system sends surveys to our most frequent and reliable members - so if you are not answering surveys that are made available to you, you might be dropped down the pecking order for future surveys.

So why not answer prize surveys too and you could be a winner and you'll continue to receive paid surveys. Thanks

A lot of people had been reporting that they'd prefer to have the money, than fill out prize surveys, and this was their response.

The main reason people have stopped filling them out is because they are for such little amounts (£25, £50), and can be just as long as a 15p survey (20 questions.) They also seem to merge surveys together, as on numerous occasions when I've been filling out the surveys, they've tacked on lots of different types of questions at the end. A bit sneaky as those shorter surveys would probably have bagged me 5p.

There are so many problems with onepoll at the moment, and disgruntled facebookers are voicing their opinions. Onepoll rarely reply, and seem to cherry pick the ones they do reply to (which are usually the positive posts.)

All that being said, you can make money with them, and I've done quite well over the last year. Just don't expect it to be stress free! E.g. They have a poor system which has a "First past the post" scheme.

Imagine you're doing a 10p survey, Onepoll have allocated the surveys, but can only accept 100 successful submissions. If 200 people start filling out the survey at the same time, they could all get to the penultimate question but only 100 will get the credit, the other 100 will get "Survey full" in big red letters. Not nice, and very annoying if you've just spent 10 minutes filling out the survey in the 1st place.

jacflash

Hah! That Facebook post has just been removed, after many people responded with outrage and really let OnePoll have it with both barrels. Obviously the powers that be at OnePoll thought better of it. Was a very cheeky post, considering how people have tried to bear with the site and its problems in the last few months.

kwakwaversal

jacflash wrote: »

Hah! That Facebook post has just been removed, after many people responded with outrage and really let OnePoll have it with both barrels. Obviously the powers that be at OnePoll thought better of it. Was a very cheeky post, considering how people have tried to bear with the site and its problems in the last few months.

Hah indeed! I'm with you on that one, I think someone didn't get this post signed off before it was published.

I couldn't believe it when they posted it, and I almost can't believe that they've removed it (though the negative posts would not have been very inspiring for new users seeing that on their facebook page.)

I'm glad I took a copy of it, and I'm glad you can vouch for it's authenticity as it has disappeared into the ether... FOREVER.

jacflash

Yup, good work kwak!

verityboo

The problem is, even though they have taken the message down on Facebook, its probably still their policy

I've definitely noticed that the number of paid surveys has dropped but like others, I can't be bothered to do the prize survey's - tried a £50 pize survey the other day and the progress bar jumped to a whole 2% after answering the first question - they must think we're stupid

kwakwaversal

verityboo wrote: »

The problem is, even though they have taken the message down on Facebook, its probably still their policy.

True enough. Though hopefully with their policy now being known, it might make people think first before using them.

They used to have an option to ignore surveys. I'd much prefer they brought that back, but obviously not penalising/demoting people for ignoring them.

There are some I really cannot be doing with e.g. the advert ones where you have to sit through 20 mins of youtube videos, only to get a "survey full" before you've finished it. I always ignore those ones, and don't mind missing out on the 20p or so.

verityboo

kwakwaversal wrote: »

There are some I really cannot be doing with e.g. the advert ones where you have to sit through 20 mins of youtube videos, only to get a "survey full" before you've finished it. I always ignore those ones, and don't mind missing out on the 20p or so.

It would of course be totally wrong of you to not actually bother watching the videos and just guess the answers. It's just another demonstration of how rubbish the new website is that it allows you to do that.

kwakwaversal

verityboo wrote: »

It would of course be totally wrong of you to not actually bother watching the videos and just guess the answers. It's just another demonstration of how rubbish the new website is that it allows you to do that.

Indeed, as I said, I ignore those ones and don't mind missing out on the 20p because the likelihood is it'll be full by the time I get to the end of it anyway.

I don't like that you can't correct your previous answer. A slip of the mouse and you've selected that you're 70, and have had a hip replacement.

On occasion I've also forgotten previous questions yet following questions refer to them (and are reliant on you remembering them.) Then I have to guess what it was... like you said, a rubbish system.

clemmatis

well done, kwak.

I'm currently doing a videos one, 25p for one and a half hours watching videos, waiting for pages to re-load (that's what's happening now...), they really do show contempt for us, but also, for the clients who pay them for their really poor "services".

I think I might troll along to Facebook and complain again.